When Sophica was abruptly separated from her father as a toddler she found a haven in
Grandmother Gitté. But one sunny day in July when she was six years old gendarmes marching
and shouting in the streets stopped her dreamy childhood and her hopes to go to school and to
be a big girl like her sister. She was deported together with her mother and the whole of the
Jewish community of Mihaileni Romania. On foot through icy fields they arrived in eastern
Ukraine a strip of land called Transnistria. Death illness brutality shame became her
daily scenes. Sophica suffered hunger and fear but kept her hopes and sanity albeit losing her
sister and her father and witnessing her mother being viciously attacked. She survived Typhus
and starvation by being strong and quiet. Herman was a jolly little boy who didn't care much
needing to wear the yellow star and being forbidden from school. He continued playing outside
with his friends while his father and brother were sent to a labor camp. At the age of 14 when
the Second World War ended he joined a Jewish youth movement and embarked on a ship to the
Promised Land. However their journey was interrupted and they were taken to a British
detention camp in Cyprus. Sophica and Herman were given new names Shulamit and Tzvi. They met
and made a home in Israel. Shulamit Sophica never mentioned her sad childhood but the essence
of the past found its ways out. Sixty-five years after those events her daughter comes across
a family secret and starts asking questions inducing Shulamit to break her silence and become
again the frightened little Sophica. This book tells her moving childhood story.
